Privacy Policy

Thank you for visiting Toastmasters International’s (“Toastmasters,” “we,” “us”) official website and shopping at our online store. We are committed to respecting and protecting the privacy rights of our members and users. This privacy policy (this “Policy”) describes the types of information that Toastmasters may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit toastmasters.org, and all associated sites, including Toastmasters Shop and Toastmasters Pathways (the "Site”), whether as a guest or a member of Toastmasters, and our practices for collecting, using, protecting and disclosing that information. By visiting the Site, you are accepting the practices described in this Policy.

In simplified form (greater detail is below), our Policy can be summarized as follows:

We may collect some information about you, as described in this Policy, but you can control how much you share about yourself.
We do not knowingly collect information from children under 18 years of age.
We will not sell your personal information but may share such information with third parties to streamline functions on our behalf and to protect our users. If we share your information with a third-party service provider, they will be vetted to ensure they protect your information.
We may collect, use and share aggregate, anonymous information about our users.
In certain legal situations, we may be compelled to disclose your personal information.
You have the ability to make choices about how your personal information is used — including the ability to opt-out of marketing communications.
If you are outside the United States, you understand and agree that we store your information in the United States.

This Policy does not apply to information collected by:

Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Company or any third party; or
Any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or through the Site.

Please read this Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use the Site. By accessing or using the Site, you agree to this Policy. This Policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of the Site after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the Policy periodically for updates.

Children Under the Age of 18

Our Site is not intended for children under 18 years of age. No one under the age of 18 may provide any information to or on the Site. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 18. If you are under 18, do not use or provide any information on this Site or through any of its features, register on the Site, make any purchases through the Site, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Site or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or username you may use. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 18 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 18, please contact us through our “Contact Us” page.

What Information Do We Collect About You?

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Site.

We collect information by which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, email address, telephone number, member identifier or certain financial information ("personal information");
We collect information that is about you but individually does not identify you, such as survey information, search queries or transaction details.
We also collect information about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Site, and usage details.

How Do We Collect Information About You?

We collect this information:

Directly from you when you provide it to us.
Automatically as you navigate through the site. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies.
From third parties, for example, our business partners.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Site may include:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Site. This includes information provided to donate to the Ralph C. Smedley Memorial Fund®, information provided at the time of registering to use our Site, subscribing to a service, posting material, or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us, and when you report a problem with our Site.
Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
Your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
Details of transactions you carry out through our Site and of the fulfillment of your orders. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order with us. (Credit card information collected by us is always immediately disposed of after the order is placed.) Financial information may be shared with third party platforms, for instance payment processors such as PayPal or Adyen, when you place an order.
Your search queries on the Site.

You also may provide information to be published or displayed (hereinafter, "posted") on public areas of the Site, or transmitted to other users of the Site (collectively, "User Contributions"). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk.

Do We Use Automatic Data Collection Technologies Like Cookies?

As you navigate through and interact with our Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

Details of your visits to our Site, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Site.
Information about your computer and internet connection, operating system, and browser type.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small data file sent from a server to your web browser. They are stored in your browser’s cache and allow a website or a third party to recognize your browser. There are different types of cookies and the details are included in cookie policy. For more information, please see our Cookie Policy. The three primary types of cookies are explained below:
- Session cookies are specific to a particular visit and carry information as you view different pages, so you don’t have to re-enter information every time you change pages or attempt to check out. Session cookies expire and delete themselves automatically in a short period of time like after you leave the Site or when you close your web browser.
- Persistent cookies remember certain information about your preferences for viewing the site and allow Toastmasters to recognize you each time you return. Persistent cookies are stored on your browser cache or mobile device until you choose to delete them, and otherwise typically delete themselves at expiration.
- Third-party cookies are placed by someone other than Toastmasters and may gather browsing activity across multiple websites and across multiple sessions. They are usually a type of persistent cookie and are stored until you delete them or they expire based on the time period set in each third-party cookie.
Web Beacons. Pages of our Site and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit Toastmasters, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).

Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Site are provided by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our website. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information, or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with advertisements or targeted content.

We do not control these third parties' tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of third party tracking technologies, see “Do I Have Choices About Sharing My Information?”

How Do We Use Your Collected Information?

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

To present our Site and its contents to you.
To provide you with information, products, or services as part of your membership.
To offer and fulfill our legitimate business purposes.
To fulfill any of the purposes for which you provide the information.
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
To notify you about changes to our Site or any products or services we offer or provide through it.
To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Site.
To present our website and its contents to you.
To store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Site according to your individual interests.
In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
For any other purpose with your consent.

Does Toastmasters Share the Information We Receive?

Toastmasters does not sell its users’ information. When you provide information to us, we may share that information with the following individuals and entities, and for the following purposes:

Toastmasters International:

This includes the organization’s World Headquarters, which manages toastmasters.org, as well as Toastmasters Districts, Divisions, Areas and individual Toastmasters clubs. In keeping with our regular offline business practices, Toastmasters International will provide information about Toastmasters members to these internal associates for communication purposes only.

Members of Toastmasters International:

When you use the Site (or features of the Site such as the Learning Management System) other members will be able to find information about you. For example, other members may be able to view the clubs you belong to. Additionally, members who share your clubs may be able to view certain personal information about you, such as your email address, join date or phone number.

Third-Party Service Providers:

We may share information with third-party service providers to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, streamlining large emails, hosting online events, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing website data, providing website design assistance, conducting surveys, and processing credit card payments. Third parties may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but may not use it for other purposes. All third parties have been carefully vetted, and have signed data protection agreements.

Protection of Toastmasters.org and Others:

We may release account and other personal information when appropriate to comply with the law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Toastmasters International, our members, or others. This may include exchanging information with civil authorities, other companies and organizations in order to protect Toastmasters International and its members from illegal activities. However, this does not include selling, renting, sharing, or otherwise disclosing personally identifiable information from customers for commercial purposes in violation of the commitments set forth in this Policy.

Corporate Matters:

We may disclose account and other personal information to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Toastmasters' assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Toastmasters about our users is among the assets transferred.

Aggregated Information:

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

With Your Consent:

We may disclose your information with your consent. For example, in connection with a promotion or contest.

Do I Have Choices About Sharing My Information?

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

Cookies and other Similar Technologies. Certain cookies are employed to make the Site function for its intended purpose and are provided based on contractual necessity based on your agreement with Toastmasters to perform the services you have requested. These include the functions strictly necessary to the service such as maintaining the security, safety, and integrity of the Site, authentication and logging into Toastmasters, and ensuring the ability to securely complete transactions. We request your consent for all non-essential cookie uses. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. You can also use third-party tools to block cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly. Please see our Cookie Policy for more information.
Advertising. You can opt out of receiving marketing and advertising communications by changing your settings through your “My Profile” page or by contacting us through our “Contact Us” page. Even if you opt out of receiving marketing messages, we will still send you transactional messages such as order confirmations and receipts and communications necessary to further our legitimate business interests.

We do not control third parties' collection or use of your information. However, these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can learn more about managing your preferences for ads online, particularly for many third-party advertising networks, through resources made available by the Digital Advertising Alliance at https://youradchoices.com/control or the Network Advertising Initiative at https://optout.networkadvertising.org.

What Individual Rights Do I Have Regarding My Information?

Certain privacy laws around the world, including the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), provide users with additional rights and choices related to their information. Consistent with those laws, Toastmasters gives members:

the right to know whether we process your personal information and the types of personal information we have about you;
the right to access, correct, or delete certain personal information;
the right to withdraw your consent for certain types of processing; and
the right to set your marketing and advertising preferences and opt-out of certain communications.

Subject to applicable law, you may have additional rights with respect to your information, such as the following:

Right to Access: You have the right to review and make copies of your personal information.
Right to Portability: You have the right to receive certain of your information which you provided; in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to transmit such information to another controller.
Right to Correction: You have the right to request that we rectify any inaccurate information about you.
Right to Restrict Processing: In certain cases, you may also have the right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your information.
Right to Deletion: In certain circumstances, you have the right to request the deletion of your information, except information we are required to retain by law, regulation, or to protect the safety, security, rights, and integrity of Toastmasters.
Right to Object: You can object to this processing in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will stop processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we rely on consent, you have the right to withdraw previously given consent to process your personal information.
Right to File a Complaint: Members residing in certain jurisdictions have the right to lodge a complaint about the supervisory authority of your country or state.

How to Exercise Your Rights and Choices

How to Access, Correct, or Delete Your Information

If you would like to access your personal information, you can do so through your “My Profile” page. Examples of information you can access through your “My Profile” page include your order history and personal information (including name, email, password, and your club membership history). You can review and change your personal information by visiting your “My Profile” page. You may also contact the Club Quality and Member Support team through the “Contact Us” page to correct your information, delete certain information, or delete your user account.

After receiving a request from a member, Toastmasters may request additional information from the member to verify the member’s identity, and clarify the scope of the request. We may not accommodate a request to delete information or change information if we believe that honoring the request would violate a Toastmasters’ obligations under applicable laws, legal requirements, regulations, or our obligations to protect the safety, security, rights, and integrity of Toastmasters.

In certain cases, we will not be able to delete your information except by also deleting your user account. If we delete your user account, you will no longer have access to your historical activity, even if you decide to create a new user account in the future.

How to Object or Opt Out

You may also choose not to provide data and opt out of services and communications along the way. However, if you object to processing or choose not to provide data, certain services may be unavailable to you as a result.

You can opt out of receiving marketing and advertising communications by changing your settings through your “My Profile” page or by contacting us through our “Contact Us” page. Even if you opt out of receiving marketing messages, we will still send you transactional messages such as order confirmations and receipts and communications necessary to further our legitimate business interests.

How to Transfer Your Information

You can make a request to access a file of your information or transfer your information by contacting us through our “Contact Us” page.

Other Considerations

In certain cases, we may need more information from you before we can process a request. In such cases, we will contact you by email or, if we do not have an email address on file for you, by the same method you used to make your request.

If we do not honor a privacy request for legal or other reasons, we will communicate with you to explain (i) why we did not honor your request, (ii) your right to appeal, and (iii) your right to file a complaint (if available where you live). To appeal a decision regarding a rights request, please contact us through our “Contact Us” page.

Residents of certain U.S. states may have additional personal information rights and choices. Please see “What Are Your State Privacy Rights” for more information.

What Are Your State Privacy Rights

State consumer privacy laws may provide their residents with additional rights regarding our use of their personal information.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia provide (now or in the future) their state residents with rights to:

Confirm whether we process their personal information.
Access and delete certain personal information.
Correct inaccuracies in their personal information, taking into account the information's nature processing purpose (excluding Iowa and Utah).
Data portability.
Opt-out of personal data processing for:
- targeted advertising (excluding Iowa);
- sales; or
- profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects (excluding Iowa and Utah).
Either limit (opt-out of) or require consent to process sensitive personal data.

The exact scope of these rights may vary by state. To exercise any of these rights, please visit your “My Profile” page or contact us through the “Contact Us” page. To appeal a decision regarding a consumer rights request, please contact us through our “Contact Us” page.

How Secure is My Information?

Toastmasters is committed to protecting the security of your personal information and maintains physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that meet industry standards to guard your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the personal information you provide on computer systems with limited access, which are in controlled facilities. We protect your account information by placing it on the secure portion of our website, using firewalls and other security technology to protect our network and systems from external attacks, and requiring you to enter a unique username and password to access your account information online.

When we transmit highly confidential information (such as a credit card number or password) over the Internet, we protect it with encryption. Toastmasters International uses industry-standard (SSL) technology to prevent unauthorized parties from viewing potentially sensitive information, such as your name and address, as well as critically sensitive information like your credit card number that you provide or access during a secure session (look for a padlock or key and chain icon on your browser).

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Certain parts of our website require a password, and you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Passwords registered with our website are encrypted to ensure protection against unauthorized access to your personal information. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

We urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of our website. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user on our website. It is important for you to guard against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when you have finished using a shared computer.

How Long Does Toastmasters Retain My Personal Information?

We retain your personal information to: (i) enable your continued use of the services, (ii) for as long as it is required in order to fulfill the relevant purposes described in this Policy, (iii) as may be required by law (including for tax and accounting purposes), or (iv) as otherwise communicated to you. How long we retain specific personal information varies depending on the purpose for its use, and we will delete your personal information in accordance with applicable law.

Will my Personal Information be Transferred to other Jurisdictions?

Toastmasters and toastmasters.org are located and operated in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, specifically if you reside in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), Switzerland or the United Kingdom, in certain cases, your personal information will be transferred from your location to the United States. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards of the United States, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside. For example, courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies or security authorities in the United States may be entitled to access your personal information. To the extent that Toastmasters is deemed to transfer information outside of the EEA, we rely separately, alternatively, and independently on the following legal bases to transfer your information:

Adequacy Decisions: Where available, we rely on decisions of the European Commission, known as “adequacy decisions,” recognizing that certain countries offer a level of protection of data that is essentially equivalent to the EEA. A list of adequacy decisions is available at the European Commission website: Data protection adequacy for non-EU countries.

Standard Contractual Clauses: Otherwise, we rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for the international and onward transfer of your personal information outside of the EEA to third countries, including, for example, to the United States.

Necessary for the Performance of the Contract Between Toastmasters and Its Users: You can choose whether or not to use the Toastmasters services. We use technical infrastructure in the United States to deliver the services to you, in accordance with the contract between us (including this Policy). For that reason, we must transfer information to the United States as necessary to provide the Services. In short, cross-border transfers are a contractual necessity, we cannot provide you with the Services and perform our contractual obligations to you without moving your information outside of the EEA.

Consent: If you do not agree to cross-border transfer of data, you should not use toastmasters.org and the Services or otherwise send us your personal information. By using the services and providing your personal information to us through toastmasters.org or the Services, you consent to the cross-border transfer, storage, and processing of your personal information.

When we transfer your personal information to the United States from non-EEA territories, we do so in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection law. If you do not agree to this international transfer of data, you should not use toastmasters.org and the Services or otherwise send us your personal information. By providing your personal information to us through toastmasters.org or the Services, you consent to the cross-border transfer, storage, and processing of your personal information.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users' personal information, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account or through a notice on the Site home page. The date the Policy was last revised is identified at the end of the Policy. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Site and this Policy to check for any changes.

What Else Should You Know?

Toastmasters strongly supports our users’ right to privacy. For this reason, we urge our visitors to read about privacy issues and laws on http://www.privacy.ca.gov/. This information is presented by the State of California Office of Privacy Protection (under the California Department of Consumer Affairs), where Toastmasters is incorporated. We recommend that you read the page entitled: “How to Read a Privacy Policy,” which is useful information for viewing any website, including toastmasters.org.

If you choose to visit our Site, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Policy and our Conditions of Use, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the law of the state of California. If you have any concern about this Policy at toastmasters.org, please contact us through our “Contact Us” page or regular mail at address listed below with a thorough description, and we will try to resolve it.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this Policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

Toastmasters International
9127 S. Jamaica Street
Suite 400
Englewood, CO 80112.

Last updated: December 4, 2025